A microwave oven, which is a typical heating cooker, is convenient in that it can heat food with the food being in a container without a pot or a frying pan having to be used. In stores selling box lunches in containers, side dishes in containers, or the like, clerks provide a service by heating purchased food with microwave ovens and providing the heated food.
This type of food-heating service will be described below. In general, optimal heating time is displayed on a box lunch or a side dish with regard to microwave oven-based heating. A store clerk performs heating after seeing the display and setting heating time in a microwave oven. An operation unit of the microwave oven has number keys and the like, and the heating time (min, sec) can be manually set.
In some cases, a microwave oven has a plurality of operation buttons and the operation buttons are assigned with different heating times. In this case, a store clerk can provide a customer with food or the like after heating the food or the like based on heating control suitable for the food or the like by selecting one of the buttons corresponding to the food or the like to be heated.
In the case of number key-based heating time (min, sec) setting as in the former configuration, the number of operations is large and the heating is likely to be inconvenient. In the case of the latter configuration, that is, in a case where the plurality of operation buttons are assigned with different heating times, an increase in the number of food types is likely to make it difficult to learn about a relationship of correspondence between the buttons and the heating times.
In order to cope with this inconvenience, mistakes, and the like, a method has been proposed for a heating cooker storing heating control content by product in advance, a store clerk's reading a product code information by using a barcode reader, and the heating cooker performing appropriate heating by calling the heating control content corresponding to a product from the code information.
Another method using no barcode reader has been proposed, too. According to this method, a camera that images an inside of a chamber of a microwave oven is provided, a barcode part is extracted from an image of a product in the chamber, and this barcode is read so that appropriate heating is performed by the heating control content corresponding to the product being called from the code information. This method reduces clerks' operation burdens and allows the clerks to provide an error-free heating service (refer to, for example, PTL 1).
In general, barcodes are attached to box lunches, side dishes, and the like that are available at stores. Information included in such barcodes is information for identification of products such as the box lunches and the side dishes, and heating time information is not included in such barcodes. Accordingly, a relationship of correspondence between a product and heating time needs to be registered in advance in a microwave oven for automatic heating time setting to be performed based on barcode recognition.
The number of products such as box lunches and side dishes that are targets of microwave oven-based heating handled at stores is extremely large. In some cases, new products are supplied on a daily basis or on a weekly basis to replace old ones, and operations for registering the relationship of correspondence between the new products and heating times in microwave ovens continue to occur at all times.
Some large stores run a plurality of microwave ovens so that a plurality of products can be heated at the same time. In this case, operations for registering the relationship of correspondence between product identification codes and heating times have to be performed on all of the plurality of microwave ovens. Then, it cannot be said that inconvenience is addressed.
In addition, a plurality of products are purchased at the same time in a store in some cases. In this case, a clerk has to put one product in a microwave oven chamber at a time and repeat a barcode-reading operation. Then, it cannot be said that inconvenience is addressed.
Furthermore, in a case where barcode reading fails after a product is put into a microwave oven chamber, a door is closed, and the barcode reading is initiated, a clerk has to frequently perform door opening and closing and put the product in anew frequently. Then, it cannot be said that inconvenience is addressed.